MoP: Destruction Warlock Guide and First Week Gear List

This thread is by now very outdated do NOT rely on numbers or details posted in it

With the start of patch 5.2 the usefulness of this guide is pretty much done, but with the lack of a new guide (so far) I have nothing to really put in it's place. Since the discussion in this thread keeps being useful, and people have come to expect to have this place to turn to for Destruction discussion I am keeping it open. Again, this OP is marginally useful for a brief overview of the class, but do not trust any information in it in terms of numbers or playing details. Much has changed.

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Disclaimer: The game is currently still in beta. The information in this guide may change before Mists of Pandaria is released. I will endeavour to keep this guide updated as soon as possible after changes are made to the servers. Check back regularly to keep on top of changes to the class.

The information in this guide would not be possible without the hard work of the people that develop Simcraft. This is based upon simulations and testing. Much of this information may change before release.

In Mists of Pandaria, Destruction is a simplistic spec that utilises a new resource; Burning Embers. These are generated by your Fire spells and are used to provide a sudden damage boost in the form of Chaos Bolts and Shadowburns, or by turning your single target spells into AoE attacks.In its current state, Destruction offers the lowest DPS of all the Warlock specs, but this is compensated slightly by a very easy rotation with on-demand burst, that will allow you to focus more on your surroundings and the raid situation.This guide should teach you everything you need to know about the spec in order to play successfully. 1. TalentsIn Mists of Pandaria, talents are no longer split into trees that have prerequisites. They also do not offer noticeable DPS gains, which means there is a lot more room for flexibility. Some encounters will have clear winners, whereas others it will simply boil down to your play style.

Tier 1

There isn't a clear winner here. You won't find much use for Harvest Life. Soul Leech will ease your healer's work by providing a constant flow of health, but Dark Regeneration adds an extra survival cooldown that might save you in dangerous situations. Either of these last two will be fine, though Soul Leech will most likely be my default talent of choice.Tier 2

Howl of Terror isn't going to be useful in a whole lot of situations, although there may be specific encounters in the future where it's reliable. Mortal Coil has the benefit of providing you with 15% of your maximum health which gives it far more practical use in a raid situation, so it will be the talent of choice in most situations. With that in mind, on certain encounters involving stunnable adds, Shadowfury will be a great talent, so don't ignore it completely. I'll be explaining specific encounters where it'll be useful in future guides on my website.Tier 3

The talents in this tree are all heavy defensive abilities. Soul Link in its current state shares damage between you and your pet so that you both remain at the same percentage of health. This works both ways, so you take a large amount of any damage directed at your pet. Any Warlock that did Madness of Deathwing Heroic will know that pets have a terrible tendency to stand in places that will get them killed, and whilst this could boil down to simply requiring better pet control, you're better off avoiding this talent completely. With that in Mind, if you use it with Grimoire of Sacrifice, it gives you a flat 20% health boost. Sacrificial Pact offers you a ~300k shield, but Dark Bargain could save you from a lot more depending on how it's used. What you pick will vary from encounter to encounter.Tier 4

Burning Rush is the go to talent of choice here - an on demand sprint with no cooldown is absolutely amazing. There may be the odd fight here or there where you want Unbound Will. There likely won't be any occasions where Blood Fear will have use in PvE. Tier 5

At the moment, Grimoire of Supremacy offers the highest DPS increase for destruction. This allows you to summon more powerful demons to replace your old ones.

Tier 6

Honestly, the talents in this tier are all far too encounter specific to judge outright. For stationary "ultraxion type" fights without any AoE the only choice is Archimonde's Vengeance, on fights with considerable AoE you'll want to take Mannoroth's Fury, and on highly mobile fights Kil'jaeden's Cunning will be the talent of choice.

2. Glyphs

Like most things in MoP, the glyph system has been simplified. Most of the Warlock glyphs do not offer any DPS gains and are simply cosmetic or fun tweaks to the class. There are two you should consider for Destruction: [Glyph of Burning Embers] - Allows you to have a maximum of 4 Burning Embers instead of 3.[Glyph of Soulstone] - This is optional, but the only other Major glyph with any practical use.

3. Stats

Intellect:This is your primary stat. Each point of Intellect increases your Spell Power by 1. However, when looking at your gear, each point of Intellect is actually worth 1.05 Intellect due to the passive ability Nethermancy. Therefore, if an item has 20 Intellect, you will gain 21 Intellect when you equip it. Intellect also increases your crit chance by a very small amount; 2548 Intellect gives you 1% chance to crit.

HitIncreases your chance to hit with spells. You need a total of 15% hit to reach cap, and 340 hit rating is equal to 1% hit. Once you reach the hit cap (5100 hit rating), your spells are all guaranteed to hit, so any additional hit is pointless.

MasteryEach percent of Mastery increases the damage you do with Immolate, Incinerate, Fel Flame and Conflagrate by 1%, and the damage you do with your Ember consuming spells by 3%. Each percent of Mastery is equal to 302 Mastery rating.ExpertiseExpertise increases your Spell Hit at the same rate as Hit does. You can use a combination of Hit and Expertise to reach the hit cap.
As a general rule of thumb, you should consider stats in the following order of importance:

Intellect is very, very good for Destruction, and should always be the deciding factor in your upgrades. Get to the Hit Cap as your second priority, and then stack Haste and Crit. Crit is slightly better than Haste at very low (pre-raid) levels of gear, but Haste is much better at higher gear levels.

To optimise your reforging, once your gear is relatively stable, use the scale factors generated by SimCraft and plug them into www.wowreforge.com. Import your character, specify the hit cap and away you go. If you don't know how to use SimCraft, I'll explain it in a future tutorial. If you don't want to Sim your own character, or don't care about accuracy, you can use the default scale factors in WoW Reforge. You could also use the addon ReforgeLite for similar functionality.

As a general rule, the above gems should be perfectly suitable choices for you as you gear up - stick to the socket colours unless the bonus is particularly awful. If you're struggling to reach the hit cap you could substitute in a [Rigid River's Heart] in a blue slot to help you get capped.
What you use in yellow sockets will depend on whether Crit or Haste is better for you, as explained in the stats section.

Currently, Destruction uses the Observer (Upgraded Felhunter) pet. This provides the highest DPS of the pets available to Destruction.

Don't forget your Doomguard. This is a powerful demon that you can summon only once every 10 minutes, and he stays with you for 60 seconds, attacking the target that you cast him on. He deals 20% bonus damage to enemies under 20% health, and also benefits from bloodlust. The best time to use him depends heavily on the fight that you're on and when your raid uses bloodlust, but it will almost always be just before bloodlust is cast.

The Infernal is the Doomguard's equivalent for AoE situations. He shares the cooldown with the Doomguard, so you must decide which one is most appropriate to use. You'll usually use the Infernal when there are 7 or more targets.

7. Spells and Abilities - Single Target

Spells:

IMMOLATE: This deals Fire damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. Critical strikes have a chance to generate Burning Embers.

CONFLAGRATE: This is an instant cast spell that does Fire damage and gives you the Backdraft buff. Backdraft has 3 charges, and it reduces the cast time and mana cost of your Incinerate and Chaos Bolt spells. Using it for Chaos Bolt consumes three stacks of Backdraft. You can have up to 6 charges of Backdraft by casting Conflagrate twice in succession.

SHADOWBURN: This instant cast spell deals extremely high Shadow damage. It consumes a Burning Ember, and can only be used on enemies under 20% health.

INCINERATE: This deals Fire damage to an enemy and generates Burning Embers.

CHAOS BOLT:This deals high Shadow damage to an enemy, and always critically hits. Critical Strike chance increases the damage it does. It consumes a Burning Ember.

1 - Shadowburn - Use this when you have Burning Embers on enemies below 20%.2 - Chaos Bolt - Use this when you have Burning Embers on enemies above 20%, but only when you don't have Backdraft.3 - Conflagrate - Use this to keep up the Backdraft buff.4 - Immolate - Keep this up.5 - Incinerate - Use this as your filler.6 - Fel Flame - Use this when moving.
Just before the fight starts, use a Potion of the Jade Serpent and then use Dark Soul. Pre-cast an Immolate to land just as the boss is pulled, and then follow up with a Conflagrate, or Curse of Elements if nobody else is providing that debuff. Then start building up your Embers with Incinerate. It's important to remember that, to do max DPS, you don't have to use your Burning Embers immediately after you get them. As long as you don't let yourself get capped (i.e. don't let yourself reach four embers or reach under 60k mana) then you aren't wasting any DPS. This allows you to store up your Embers for sections of the fight that require high DPS, or to time your Chaos Bolts with procs, Dark Soul, Bloodlust or other similar effects. Powa Auras is a great addon for telling you when these effects are active. With that said, going too long without using Chaos Bolt will lead to mana issues, as your Backdraft charges will run out faster than your Conflag cooldown, thus making Incinerate cost more.

When the boss is approaching 20%, stop using Chaos Bolts so that you have just under four Embers stored up when he transitions below 20%, allowing you to instantly throw off four Shadowburns. The single target rotation for Destruction is really that simple - just know when to blow your Embers for extra DPS.

RAIN OF FIRE: This deals Fire damage in a selected area over time. It does not need to be channelled, and may be cast in several areas at once. If the target is Immolated it deals 50% additional damage, and has a 25% chance to generate a Burning Ember each tick.:

FIRE AND BRIMSTONE: This causes your next Immolate, Conflagrate or Incinerate to hit all targets within 15 yards of the target, but deal reduced damage. This consumes one Burning Ember.:

HAVOC: Causes your next Chaos Bolt or three other single target spells cast to also strike this target.

Spell Priority: 3 or more targets

1 - Rain of Fire - Keep this ticking over enemies you are AoEing.2 - Fire and Brimstone - Use this when you have Burning Embers.3 - Immolate - Keep this up on every enemy by utilising Fire and Brimstone.4 - Conflagrate - Use this to keep up Backdraft.5 - Incinerate - Use this as your AoE filler.

Start off by casting Rain of Fire over the enemies that you want to AoE, followed immediately by using Fire and Brimstone and Immolate together, to apply Immolate to every enemy. This means that the Rain of Fire ticks will start to generate Burning Embers. Next, use Conflagrate to get the Backdraft buff up. You can use Conflagrate with Fire and Brimstone if you have the Embers, but to start off with you probably won't have enough. Next, use Incinerate on the Immolated enemies. Every time you get a Burning Ember, use it on one of your spells. Rain of Fire and Immolate should always be ticking on enemies to ensure your ember generation stays high, and then use the Embers that generates to use Fire and Brimstone with Incinerates and Conflagrates.

9. Extra Tips

This section should clarify some of the major mechanic changes between Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria.

Dot Refreshing:At level 90, DoTs are refreshed in a different way. If you cast Corruption on an enemy that already has Corruption on it, the remaining duration of the previous effect will be added to the new effect, up to a maximum of 50% of its base duration. So, if you recast Corruption when it has 6 seconds remaining, it will now have 24 seconds remaining. The maximum duration it will increase to is 27 seconds, since its base duration is 18. This means that you can refresh it any time when it has less than 9 seconds remaining and you won't waste any time. (9+ 18= 27).

Before you reach level 90, this extension doesn't happen, which means you should refresh your DoT just after it expires.

Doom Guard:Your Doomguard now benefits from Bloodlust and deals bonus damage when under 20%. He also updates dynamically with your stats - there is no need to wait for Int or Haste procs before you summon him - although summoning him when their internal cooldown is soon to expire will be beneficial, to ensure they proc whilst he is out.

10. Mists of Pandaria - Gearing up in Week 1

During the first week of Mists of Pandaria, there won't be any raids available (except for the two outdoor raid bosses). It also will not be possible to acquire enough Valor to purchase any gear, or achieve Revered with most factions. This means that during the first week of MoP, when gearing up ready for raids in the second week, most of your gear will come from heroics and from a few crafted items. Below is a table that shows the BiS gear that is attainable in the first week, so that you can be completely prepared for your raids. I've also included the scale factors once you're wearing that gear.

Most of the information in the three guides I wrote on these forums will do you fine at level 85. The below information is other stuff you'll want to know that applies ONLY to level 85:

- The hit cap is now 15%, which is 1537 rating. It was previously 1742, which means you will need to reforge out of some hit.

- You can only refresh your DoTs between their penultimate and their final tick. Since many of our DoTs tick extremely quickly, it is very difficult to refresh them at the correct time. Corruption, for example, ticks roughly every 1.5 seconds, so the window to refresh it is miniscule. Don't refresh them before the penultimate tick, if you can help it.

- These are your stat priorities:

Destruction
Int > Hit > Mastery > Crit > Haste

All the other information in the guides, including rotation and talent choices, is applicable to level 85 as well as 90. The one exception to this is that Grimoire of Sacrifice is better than Supremacy for Destro at 85.

i havent paid any attention to the glyphs over recent weeks, but what about glyph of conflagrate and glyph of dark soul? could potentially glyph of demon training work for grimoire of supremecy pets? just curious.

i havent paid any attention to the glyphs over recent weeks, but what about glyph of conflagrate and glyph of dark soul? could potentially glyph of demon training work for grimoire of supremecy pets? just curious.

Glyph of Dark Soul is a dps loss, straight up.
Glyph of Demon Training could well work for the Supremacy pets, but it doesn't offer any practical PvE use at all, not with the Succbus/Shivara.
Glyph of Conflagrate, as far as I'm aware, just allows Conflagrate to snare it's target without the need for Immolate. It's not a DPS increase. That said, it could have very situational use - it would be pretty sick for the Congealing Bloods on Madness Heroic with Fire and Brimstone. This thread is more about the generic use of the spec, since I'm planning to do encounter specific strategies at a later date, though I may consider adding that in.

There are a few factors you have to consider when figuring out your stat priorities. For one, they are heavily affected by how much you have of the others. If you have a really low amount of Mastery, it'll make it's stat weighting appear higher when you simulate it.

For Destruction, Crit and Haste are very close together, so if you have say, 1000 Haste more than you have Crit, then Crit will show up higher. You can't just stack one stat and expect it to always be your best stat.

Now, as far as Mastery is concerned - if you take a look at the default profile on Simcraft, that shows the following stat weights: Crit: 1.86, Haste: 1.74, Mastery: 1.68. These are all very close together, but if you look at the profile, you'll notice that it has 7940 Haste, 3831 Crit and only 1720 Mastery. So, despite Mastery being significantly below the other values, it's still considered the poorest stat. Crit has overtaken Haste because the profile has significantly more Haste than it does Crit.

For another example, here are the stat weights for the Pre-raid BIS profile I made for this guide:

This profile has 4235 Haste, 3010 Crit and 1210 Mastery. Crit is valued very, very slightly above Haste, but as soon as I reforge any Haste to Crit on that profile, the weights change back in favour of Haste.

Now, just because Simcraft says that it's best, doesn't mean it definitely is, at least not at this stage. However, we can't accurately test to the contrary, so it's a safe bet to assume that the weights Simcraft presents are correct. (Also, remember that Haste makes your mana regenerate faster as Destruction). I am fairly confident that Haste >= Crit > Mastery will be the way to go come live.

Glyph of Dark Soul is a dps loss, straight up.
Glyph of Demon Training could well work for the Supremacy pets, but it doesn't offer any practical PvE use at all, not with the Succbus/Shivara.
Glyph of Conflagrate, as far as I'm aware, just allows Conflagrate to snare it's target without the need for Immolate. It's not a DPS increase. That said, it could have very situational use - it would be pretty sick for the Congealing Bloods on Madness Heroic with Fire and Brimstone. This thread is more about the generic use of the spec, since I'm planning to do encounter specific strategies at a later date, though I may consider adding that in.

couple things i'm curious about. one being that while a 20% crit dark soul for 20 seconds on a 2 minute cd is certainly less than the 30% buff without the glyph, you also get 100 seconds with a passive 10% crit gain while it's on cd. i would think that would balance out, and not translate to a dps loss, being that more crits = more embers. perhaps you can explain why it's a dps loss with some numbers to reflect that.

i'm also seeing varying reports saying fel imp is outperforming the shivara. this is why i am curious about the glyph of demon training. if the imp is getting used instead, and it's cast time is increased by 50%, while firing in 3 round bursts, it would seem to be an obvious choice.

i suppose soulstone will win out one of those spots most of the time, but i can see some situational uses for conflagrate.

i'm not exactly how the dark soul glyph works. does it mean 10% of 30% making it 27%, or 20%? does that mean it gives you a passive 3% increased crit while on cd and not 10%? either way i think it would balance out to be more or less equal. could be mistaken. just wondering.

couple things i'm curious about. one being that while a 20% crit dark soul for 20 seconds on a 2 minute cd is certainly less than the 30% buff without the glyph, you also get 100 seconds with a passive 10% crit gain while it's on cd. i would think that would balance out, and not translate to a dps loss, being that more crits = more embers. perhaps you can explain why it's a dps loss with some numbers to reflect that.

i'm not exactly how the dark soul glyph works. does it mean 10% of 30% making it 27%, or 20%? does that mean it gives you a passive 3% increased crit while on cd and not 10%? either way i think it would balance out to be more or less equal. could be mistaken. just wondering.

You don't get ANY passive crit when DS is on CD. The glyph is for lazy people who don't want to use their CDs but still get some benefit from them.

i was just wondering that too, esp with CB's dmg scaling with crit% + ember gain. Objectively i can see how you'd draw the haste > crit from the simcraft results..but subjectively it feels like crit would be better past a certain tipping point.

You don't get ANY passive crit when DS is on CD. The glyph is for lazy people who don't want to use their CDs but still get some benefit from them.

There's also something to be said about sitting on DS until you have your resources built up -- Embers, Fury ... I mean, I'm not sure how good/bad that is, but in my own piddling around, my numbers soar when I pop DS and then go to town with full resources to blow

There's also something to be said about sitting on DS until you have your resources built up -- Embers, Fury ... I mean, I'm not sure how good/bad that is, but in my own piddling around, my numbers soar when I pop DS and then go to town with full resources to blow

I can see this being a really good tactic for fights with a burst mechanic, like Spine lifts or Feedback on Hagara.

There's also something to be said about sitting on DS until you have your resources built up -- Embers, Fury ... I mean, I'm not sure how good/bad that is, but in my own piddling around, my numbers soar when I pop DS and then go to town with full resources to blow

Obviously that'd be great for burst, but for sustained DPS you'd be much better off building up your resources before Dark Soul came off cooldown, rather than sitting on it - just don't let yourself go oom by doing that.

Obviously that'd be great for burst, but for sustained DPS you'd be much better off building up your resources before Dark Soul came off cooldown, rather than sitting on it - just don't let yourself go oom by doing that.

I meant more at the very start of a fight. If you blow DS at the start of a fight you will have full resources before it's off cd. I haven't been into any deep testing tho so I'm not sure how things line up without having to bleed resources to prevent capping.

And for Destro, as folks have mentioned, the crit chance bonus is only a guaranteed dps increase if you use it on Chaos Bolt. There is, in fact, a chance you will, with bad rng, do less damage with DS up than not if you use it on anything but Chaos Bolt.

But yeah, like I said, I don't really know how good/bad it is. Just doing some amateur hypothesizing (not necessarily theorycrafting). I haven't looked at it lately, but if I recall the discussion about the passive bonus in trade for the reduced-strength cd had it about even over the course of a fight.

100% uptime on a 3% bonus (just for math assuming you never actually pop the cd), or 13% uptime on 30% (of course based on fight length -- here I assumed a five-minute encounter) ... please correct me if my napkin math is completely offbase there.

But, my impression of the glyph has always been that it's designed for anyone who isn't popping everything at the very start of the fight. And Destro/Demo are simply unable to pop everything at the start of the fight because they need to build resources. Glyphed has to have a slightly-lower theoretical benefit because it affords the initial pooling of resources that would just waste uptime for unglyphed.

When the boss is approaching 20%, stop using Chaos Bolts so that you have just under four Embers stored up when he transitions below 20%, allowing you to instantly throw off four Shadowburns.

I really don't think this is the way to go. You would probably do more damage by keeping them (maximum possible without being OOM or ember capped) until you have buffs like Dark Soul/Use trinkets... Plus if you use all 4 in a row you might end up being OOM.

I really don't think this is the way to go. You would probably do more damage by keeping them (maximum possible without being OOM or ember capped) until you have buffs like Dark Soul/Use trinkets... Plus if you use all 4 in a row you might end up being OOM.